Astrophysicist

Quotes & Thinkers in Astrophysicist

50 thinkers

"Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another."

Carl Sagan· b. 1934View quote →

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🇺🇸Carl Sagan

Science

1934–1996

"For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations."

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

"What has led astronomers and cosmologists to come to this picture we have of this expanding universe that started in the big bang?"

"The way I solved the theoretical problem was to go into the shop and build something concrete."

"I myself can think of a dozen ways to annihilate all living persons within one hour."

🇮🇳Kariamanickam Srinivasa Krishnan

Science

1898–1961

"This elegant generalization is mathematically very appealing; but physics means facing facts. You should take up case by case."

"We only see shadows of reality. We shouldn't expect those shadows to behave sensibly."

"Explanation of the code "6EQUJ5" on the Wow! computer printout"

"Schrödinger's wave-mechanics is not a physical theory, but a dodge — and a very good dodge too."

"If every one of those good words — liberty, equality, fraternity, democracy, human rights — has been called "bourgeois", what on earth does that leave for us?"

"When I'm gone, people will no doubt remember me for Queen, but I would much rather be remembered for attempting to change the way we treat our fellow creatures."

1 quotes

🇷🇺Khabibullo Abdusamatov

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."

40 quotes

🇺🇸Edwin Ernest Salpeter

Science

1924–2008

"I may be a minority of one in advocating that one should NOT separate science and politics—partly because I am old enough to remember the Weimar Republic before 1934..."

"Understanding is, after all, what science is all about — and science is a great deal more than mindless computation."

"It's easy to sleep floating around — it's very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don't float into somebody or something!"

"Cultural contamination that is directed outward is always seen as “enlightenment."

"The Infinite has to be a relative concept. Go any distance: an infinite space means that there is more to be explored."

"They used their intelligence to control things around them, instead of letting nature and the strong-muscled have their way."

"We were marching down the street, and we were at the head of the troops. We went on marching, and the troops went off to the left."

"I have never thought that you could obtain the extremely clumpy, heterogeneous universe we have today, strongly affected by plasma processes, from the smooth, homogeneous one of the Big Bang, dominated by gravitation."

"There is a prescription that works well, MOND, but the reason it works so well is not known. You may say that MOND tells us how the real theory of gravity should look."

6 quotes

🇬🇧Edward Robert Harrison

Science

1919–2007

"Hydrogen is a light, odorless gas, which, given enough time, turns into people."

"Simplicity is the touchstone in finding new physical laws. … If it's elegant, then it's a rough rule of thumb: you're on the right track."

"If we are to survive, we must not accept the official indoctrination of the purpose of nuclear 'power' stations, radiation health risks, the 'need' for further nuclear weapons and the reality of nuclear war."

"Is the surface of a planet really the right place for expanding technological civilization?"

"It took less than an hour to make the atoms, a few hundred million years to make the stars and planets, but five billion years to make man!"

"“Until recently we were a trio. Before that, a quartet. Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m beginning to detect a trend."

"Not surprisingly, by the late 1970s and early 1980s, ExxonMobil scientists understood quite well the mechanisms of climate change and its broad implications for the oil business."

"Michael H. Hart: The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History, Carol Publishing Group Edition, New York, , 1993"

"Eventually, we reach the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows and search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial."

"On a double-log plot, my grandmother fits on a straight line."

"A theorist can explain any correlation, and its inverse."

1 quotes

Notable Quotes

"For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations."

— Carl Sagan, b. 1934View →

"Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring — not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive."

— Carl Sagan, b. 1934View →

"There is a very stunning range of studies... of interstellar organic matter... the cold, dark spaces between the stars are also loaded with organic matter. ...complex organic materials are everywhere."

— Carl Sagan, b. 1934View →

"A mutation in a DNA molecule within a chromosome of a skin cell in my index finger has no influence on heredity. Fingers are not involved, at least directly, in the propagation of the species."

— Carl Sagan, b. 1934View →

"Suppose your father... walked into this room at the ordinary human pace of walking. And suppose just behind him was his father. How long would we have to wait before the ancestor who enters the now-open door is a creature who normally walked on all fours? The answer is a week."

— Carl Sagan, b. 1934View →

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